I donned my IT hat this past week and migrated the site to a new physical location.
The site is now running on multiple, load-balanced servers in a scaleable configuration at a closer-to-tier 1 data center.
Images continue to be served from Amazon's S3 service (for performance reasons) and the forums remain on their same server.

While not everything went smoothly, hopefully the only change you have noticed is that site pages load faster.
The small percentage of you that were having trouble viewing images should no longer have this problem.

Canon Europe has made an announcement regarding a
Canon EOS-1D Mark IV firmware update that is coming in the next week or so.
Here is the information provided by Canon Europe:

FAQ: Announcement regarding AF tracking performance of the EOS-1D Mk IV
As a result of further enhancement, Canon is working to release a firmware update for the EOS-1D Mark IV.
This firmware update further enhances the AF tracking performance and is scheduled to be available for download from the Web starting from late January.

We will update this announcement on once this firmware update is ready for download.

Details of the enhancement: Firmware Version 1.0.6 enhances the AF tracking performance of the EOS-1D Mark IV for receding subjects and for subjects that are approaching at a low speed.

Support: Once the new firmware is ready for download, this announcement will be updated.

Lens and flash deals seldom get better than when there is a rebate available for them.
If a Canon EF 200mm f/2L IS USM Lens is on your to-buy list,
don't miss the $500 instant rebate available right now.

Now we likely know the update that caused many of the lenses to disappear from Canon's site.
And a retraction on my part ... I said yesterday that your favorite lens was not discontinued.
Well, if your favorite lens was the same as mine (though I have many favorite lenses) -
the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM Lens,
it indeed has been discontinued!
The good news for current owners is that the new lens will likely be significantly more expensive than the already-excellent current model.
Thus the value of the original 70-200 f.2.8 L IS will remain high.

I'm excited about the new model - It looks very nice and has an excellent MTF graph.
I expect this lens to be a big hit and hard to get.
I'll let you know when preorders begin to be taken.

Many new sample pictures from various lenses and cameras have been added to the site.
Some image pages have short tips included.

Some of you have noticed that a significant number of lenses are missing from the Canon USA website at this moment.
You can rest assured that your favorite lens has not been discontinued - Canon USA has "... identified the issue and will have it fixed as soon as possible".

The new (and very nice - I have all three)
Lowepro Toploader Pro camera cases are now readily available.
B&H's Used Department is clearing out the remaining also-nice original
Lowepro Toploaders
in new condition and at nice prices.